Positivity
by runaway ballista
Summary: [RTH] No relationship ever starts out perfect, starts out free of complications, and Hayate and Yuugao's is no exception. HayaYuu, preseries.


HayaYuu gets so little love, even with all of its canon-y-ness. This was done by a prompt given to me by Toboe Lonewolf - _"If the magnitude of an electric field in air exceeds a certain critical value Ec, the air undergoes_ electrical breakdown, _a process whereby the field removes electrons from the atoms in the air." _I had to ask someone else to explain to me what that _meant_ first, but as soon as I did, I came up with it. It might be hard to see but it's _there_.

_Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me; I just borrow it sometimes. The setting and characters belong to Kishimoto Masashi._

**Positivity**

No relationship ever starts out perfect, starts out free of complications, and Hayate and Yuugao's is no exception.

Hayate remembers all the time he spent convincing Yuugao that a relationship between them could work, that he wasn't concerned that she's in ANBU, that he wasn't - and still isn't - so afraid of losing something that he would never try to have it.

It took him three months before he could get Yuugao to agree. He thought he was never so happy in his life.

He remembers the time he found out that Yuugao once slept with Genma. It was only a one-night stand, before Hayate ever even got together with her, but he still remembers the anger that burned hot in his throat at how casually Genma talked about it. He ended up punching Genma in the mouth without even thinking about it. He apologized even though he wasn't really sure he was entirely sorry, and Genma eventually forgave him for it.

Hayate also remembers the time that Yuugao came back from a mission and slept on the roof instead of their futon. He remembers being so worried about her, about not seeing her all not and wondering frantically where she was that it turned into anger. He yelled at her, lashed out at her when she crawled in through the window the following morning, and it was only afterwards that he realized that it had been an ANBU mission, and a bad one. He apologized after - almost desperately so - but he's not sure if he ever made that right.

He remembers the first time he told Yuugao that he loves her. The words burned in his mouth for so long that he couldn't hold them back any longer and they spilled out, tumbling over clumsy lips and tongue. He remembers how scared he was that night, so terrified - so much that he cried when she kissed him and responded in kind.

And then, some time after that, something changed. Eventually, there was no more anger, no more tension, no more fights; it all gradually dissipated from the atmosphere between them, as if stripped away bit by bit. And for a while Hayate was afraid, as if it was only the prelude to something horrible and painful, the calm before the storm. And it took him a while, but he finally realized - when no disaster struck, when it only got better, he realized that it was only because his love for Yuugao, and her love for him, has gotten so strong that there is nothing than can tear them apart; there is no negativity left between them. There is nothing to fear.

Hayate knows now. He knows he loves Yuugao and that she loves him. And he lknows that if she crawls in through the window at night it means the mission went bad, and he holds her trembling body close against his until she passes out from exhaustion. And he knows that if she doesn't come in at all, then it means she's sleeping on the roof because the mission was even worse, and in that case she doesn't want to be held, can't stand to be held, because if someone touches her so intimately then something in her just might break. And Hayate knows this, understands this, and respects this, and he always leaves their spare futon on the roof because he knows she can't see him until she's made herself better. But it doesn't matter because Hayate loves her more than anything else in this world, and he cherishes every moment he is allowed to hold her in his arms.


End file.
